Edmund Burke was born in Dublin in January, 1729, the son of an attorney. His
father was Protestant, his mother Catholic; and though the son followed his father's
religion, he was always tolerant of the other faith. He was educated at Trinity College,
Dublin, where he took his B.A. in 1748, coming to London two years later to study law. But
his tastes were more literary than legal, and on giving up law, against his father's wish,
before he was called to the bar, he was forced to resort to his pen for a livelihood.

The first of his productions to gain notice was his "Vindication of Natural
Society, by a late noble writer," an ironical imitation of the style and arguments of
Bolingbroke, carried out with great skill. This pamphlet already showed Burke as a
defender of the established order of things. In the same year, 1756, appeared his famous
"Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and
Beautiful."

For five years, from 1759 to 1764, Burke's time was largely occupied by his duties
as secretary to William Gerard Hamilton, practically his only publications being in the
"Annual Register," with which he was connected for many years; yet in this
period he found time to form intimacies with the famous group containing, among others,
Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Dr. Johnson. During the short administration of Lord
Rockingham, Burke acted as that nobleman's private secretary, and in January, 1766, he
became a member of the House of Commons. Almost at once he came into prominence as a
speaker, displaying in the debates on American affairs, which then occupied the House,
much independence and a disposition toward a wise expediency rather than a harsh
insistence on theoretical sovereignty in dealing with the colonists.

In 1768 Burke bought an estate in Buckinghamshire, for which he was never able to
pay in full; and during most of his life he was in financial difficulties. During the
Grafton ministry his chief publication was his "Thoughts on the Present
Discontents," in which he opposed the reviving influence of the court, and championed
the interests of the people. American affairs continued to engage the attention of
Parliament, and throughout the struggle with the colonies Burke's voice was constantly
raised on behalf of a policy of conciliation. With the aid of his disciple, C. J. Fox, he
forced the retirement of Lord North, and when the Whigs came into power in 1782 he was
made paymaster of the forces. Aristocratic jealousy, and the difficulties of his own
temperament, kept him out of a cabinet position then and later.

The next great issue on which Burke employed his oratorical talents was the
impeachment of Warren Hastings. Beginning in 1787, it dragged on for seven years, Burke
closing his colossal labors with a nine days' speech. Though Hastings was acquitted,
Burke's fervid indignation in supporting the impeachment, and the impeachment itself, were
indications of the growth of the sense of responsibility for the humane treatment of
subject peoples.

Meantime, the sympathy expressed in England for the French Revolution in its
earlier stages roused Burke to express his opposition in his famous
"Reflections." In the debates which followed, Burke became separated from his
friends Sheridan and Fox, and finally from his party, and he closed his political career
in practical isolation.

On his retirement from Parliament in 1794, the King granted him a pension which
Pitt found means to increase, but even this well-earned reward he was not allowed to enjoy
without the grudging assaults of enemies. His last days were spent in vigorous support of
the war against France; and he died July 8, 1797.

Burke never attained a political office in any degree proportioned to his ability
and services, but he succeeded, nevertheless, in affecting profoundly the opinion of his
time. Latterly the House of Commons tired of his fervid and imaginative eloquence,
unwilling perhaps to make the effort necessary to follow his keen intellectual processes,
but he found through his writings a larger audience. "Bacon alone excepted,"
says Buckle, Burke was "the greatest political thinker who has ever devoted himself
to the practise of English politics."

Preface

I have endeavoured to make this edition something more full and satisfactory than the
first. I have sought with the utmost care, and read with equal attention, everything which
has appeared in public against my opinions; I have taken advantage of the candid liberty
of my friends; and if by these means I have been better enabled to discover the
imperfections of the work, the indulgence it has received, imperfect as it was, furnished
me with a new motive to spare no reasonable pains for its improvement. Though I have not
found sufficient reason, or what appeared to me sufficient, for making any material change
in my theory, I have found it necessary in many places to explain, illustrate, and enforce
it. I have prefixed an introductory discourse concerning Taste: it is a matter curious in
itself; and it leads naturally enough to the principal inquiry. This, with the other
explanations, has made the work considerably larger; and by increasing its bulk, has, I am
afraid, added to its faults; so that, notwithstanding all my attention, it may stand in
need of a yet greater share of indulgence than it required at its first appearance.

They who are accustomed to studies of this nature will expect, and they will allow too
for many faults. They know that many of the objects of our inquiry are in themselves
obscure and intricate; and that many others have been rendered so by affected refinements
or false learning; they know that there are many impediments in the subject, in the
prejudices of others, and even in our own, that render it a matter of no small difficulty
to show in a clear light the genuine face of nature. They know that, whilst the mind is
intent on the general scheme of things, some particular parts must be neglected; that we
must often submit the style to the matter, and frequently give up the praise of elegance,
satisfied with being clear.

The characters of nature are legible, it is true; but they are not plain enough to
enable those who run, to read them. We must make use of a cautious, I had almost said a
timorous, method of proceeding. We must not attempt to fly, when we can scarcely pretend
to creep. In considering any complex matter, we ought to examine every distinct ingredient
in the composition, one by one; and reduce everything to the utmost simplicity; since the
condition of our nature binds us to a strict law and very narrow limits. We ought
afterwards to re-examine the principles by the effect of the composition, as well as the
composition by that of the principles. We ought to compare our subject with things of a
similar nature, and even with things of a contrary nature; for discoveries may be, and
often are, made by the contrast, which would escape us on the single view. The greater
number of the comparisons we make, the more general and the more certain our knowledge is
like to prove, as built upon a more extensive and perfect induction.

If an inquiry thus carefully conducted should fail at last of discovering the truth, it
may answer an end perhaps as useful, in discovering to us the weakness of our own
understanding. If it does not make us knowing, it may make us modest. If it does not
preserve us from error, it may nt least from the spirit of error; and may make us cautious
of pronouncing with positiveness or with haste, when so much labour may end in so much
uncertainty.

I could wish that, in examining this theory, the same method were pursued which I
endeavoured to observe in forming it. The objections, in my opinion, ought to be proposed,
either to the several principles as they are distinctly considered, or to the justness of
the conclusion which is drawn from them. But it is common to pass over both the premises
and conclusion in silence, and to produce, as an objection, some poetical passage which
does not seem easily accounted for upon the principles I endeavour to establish. This
manner of proceeding I should think very improper. The task would be infinite, if we could
establish no principle until we had previously unravelled the complex texture of every
image or description to be found in poets and orators. And though we should never be able
to reconcile the effect of such images to our principles, this can never overturn the
theory itself, whilst it is founded on certain and indisputable facts. A theory founded on
experiment, and not assumed, is always good for so much as it explains. Our inability to
push it indefinitely is no argument at all against it. This inability may be owing to our
ignorance of some necessary mediums; to a want of proper application; to many other causes
besides a defect in the principles we employ. In reality, the subject requires a much
closer attention than we dare claim from our manner of treating it.

If it should not appear on the face of the work, I must caution the reader against
imagining that I intended a full dissertation on the Sublime and Beautiful. My inquiry
went no farther than to the origin of these ideas. If the qualities which I have ranged
under the head of the Sublime be all found consistent with each other, and all different
from those which I place under the head of Beauty; and if those which compose the class of
the Beautiful have the same consistency with themselves, and the same opposition to those
which are classed under the denomination of Sublime, I am in little pain whether anybody
chooses to follow the name I give them or not, provided he allows that what I dispose
under different heads are in reality different things in nature. The use I make of the
words may be blamed, as too confined or too extended; my meaning cannot well be
misunderstood.

To conclude: whatever progress may be made towards the discovery of truth in this
matter, I do not repent the pains I have taken in it. The use of such inquiries may be
very considerable. Whatever turns the soul inward on itself, tends to concentre its
forces, and to fit it for greater and stronger flights of science. By looking into
physical causes our minds are opened and enlarged; and in this pursuit, whether we take or
whether we lose our game, the chase is certainly of service. Cicero, true as he was to the
academic philosophy, and consequently led to reject the certainty of physical, as of every
other kind of knowledge, yet freely confesses its great importance to the human
understanding; "Est animorum ingeniorumque nostrorum naturale quoddam quasi pabulum
consideratio contemplatioque naturae." If we can direct the lights we derive from
such exalted speculations, upon the humbler field of the imagination, whilst we
investigate the springs, and trace the courses of our passions, we may not only
communicate to the taste a sort of philosophical solidity, but we may reflect back on the
severer sciences some of the graces and elegancies of taste, without which the greatest
proficiency in those sciences will always have the appearance of something illiberal.

In poetry, and other pieces of imagination, the same parity may be observed. It is
true, that one man is charmed with Don Bellianis, and reads Virgil coldly; whilst another
is transported with the Eneid, and leaves Don Bellianis to children. These two men seem to
have a taste very different from each other; but in fact they differ very little. In both
these pieces, which inspire such opposite sentiments, a tale exciting admiration is told;
both are full of action, both are passionate; in both are voyages, battles, triumphs, and
continual changes of fortune. The admirer of Don Bellianis perhaps does not understand the
refined language of the Eneid, who, if it was degraded into the style of the Pilgrim's
Progress, might feel it in all its energy, on the same principle which made him an admirer
of Don Bellianis.

In his favourite author he is not shocked with the continual breaches of probability,
the confusion of times, the offences against manners, the trampling upon geography; for he
knows nothing of geography and chronology, and he has never examined the grounds of
probability. He perhaps reads of a shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia; wholly taken up with
so interesting an event, and only solicitous for the fate of his hero, he is not in the
least troubled at this extravagant blunder. For why should he be shocked at a shipwreck on
the coast of Bohemia, who does not know but that Bohemia may be an island in the Atlantic
ocean? and after all, what reflection is this on the natural good taste of the person here
supposed?

So far then as taste belongs to the imagination, its principle is the same in all men;
there is no difference in the manner of their being affected, nor in the causes of the
affection; but in the degree there is a difference, which arises from two causes
principally; either from a greater degree of natural sensibility, or from a closer and
longer attention to the object. To illustrate this by the procedure of the senses, in
which the same difference is found, let us suppose a very smooth marble table to be set
before two men; they both perceive it to be smooth; and they are both pleased with it
because of this quality. So far they agree. But suppose another, and after that another
table, the latter still smoother than the former, to be set before them. It is now very
probable that these men, who are so agreed upon what is smooth, and in the pleasure from
thence, will disagree when they come to settle which table has the advantage in point of
polish. Here is indeed the great difference between tastes, when men come to compare the
excess or diminution of things which are judged by degree and not by measure. Nor is it
easy, when such a difference arises, to settle the point, if the excess or diminution be
not glaring. If we differ in opinion about two quantities, we can have recourse to a
common measure, which may decide the question with the utmost exactness; and this, I take
it, is what gives mathematical knowledge a greater certainty than any other. But in things
whose excess is not judged by greater or smaller, as smoothness and roughness, hardness
and softness, darkness and light, the shades of colours, all these are very easily
distinguished when the difference is any way considerable, but not when it is minute, for
want of some common measures, which perhaps may never come to be discovered. In these nice
cases, supposing the acuteness of the sense equal, the greater attention and habit in such
things will have the advantage. In the question about the tables, the marble-polisher will
unquestionably determine the most accurately. But notwithstanding this want of a common
measure for settling many disputes relative to the senses, and their representative the
imagination, we find that the principles are the same in all, and that there is no
disagreement until we come to examine into the pre-eminence or difference of things, which
brings us within the province of the judgment.

So long as we are conversant with the sensible qualities of things, hardly any more
than the imagination seems concerned; little more also than the imagination seems
concerned when the passions are represented, because by the force of natural sympathy they
are felt in all men without any recourse to reasoning, and their justness recognized in
every breast. Love, grief, fear, anger, joy, all these passions have, in their turns,
affected every mind; and they do not affect it in an arbitrary or casual manner, but upon
certain, natural, and uniform principles. But as many of the works of imagination are not
confined to the representation of sensible objects, nor to efforts upon the passions, but
extend themselves to the manners, the characters, the actions, and designs of men, their
relations, their virtues, and vices, they come within the province of the judgment, which
is improved by attention, and by the habit of reasoning. All these make a very
considerable part of what are considered as the objects of taste; and Horace sends us to
the schools of philosophy and the world for our instruction in them. Whatever certainty is
to be acquired in morality and the science of life; just the same degree of certainty have
we in what relates to them in the works of imitation. Indeed it is for the most part in
our skill in manners, and in the observances of time and place, and of decency in general,
which is only to be learned in those schools to which Horace recommends us, that what is
called taste, by way of distinction, consists; and which is in reality no other than a
more refined judgment. On the whole it appears to me, that what is called taste, in its
most general acceptation, is not a simple idea, but' is partly made up of a perception of
the primary pleasures of sense, of the secondary pleasures of the imagination, and of the
conclusions of the reasoning faculty, concerning the various relations to these, and
concerning the human passions, manners, and actions. All this is requisite to form taste,
and the ground-work of all these is the same in the human mind; for as the senses are the
great originals of all our ideas, and consequently of all our pleasures, if they are not
uncertain and arbitrary, the whole ground-work of taste is common to all, and therefore
there is a sufficient foundation for a conclusive reasoning on these matters.

Whilst we consider taste merely according to its nature and species, we shall find its
principles entirely uniform; but the degree in which these principles prevail in the
several individuals of mankind, is altogether as different as the principles themselves
are similar. For sensibility and judgment, which are the qualities that compose what we
commonly call a taste, vary exceedingly in various people. From a defect in the former of
these qualities arises a want of taste; a weakness in the latter constitutes a wrong or a
bad one. There are some men formed with feelings so blunt, with tempers so cold and
phlegmatic, that they can hardly be said to be awake during the whole course of their
lives. Upon such persons the most striking objects make but a faint and obscure
impression. There are others so continually in the agitation of gross and merely sensual
pleasures, or so occupied in the low drudgery of avarice, or so heated in the chase of
honours and distinction, that their minds, which had been used continually to the storms
of these violent and tempestuous passions, can hardly be put in motion by the delicate and
refined play of the imagination. These men, though from a different cause, become as
stupid and insensible as the former; but whenever either of these happen to be struck with
any natural elegance or greatness, or with these qualities in any work of art, they are
moved upon the same principle.

The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment. And this may arise from a natural
weakness of understanding, (in whatever the strength of that faculty may consist,) or,
which is much more commonly the case, it may arise from a want of proper and well-directed
exercise, which alone can make it strong and ready. Besides that ignorance, inattention,
prejudice, rashness, levity, obstinacy, in short, all those passions, and all those vices,
which pervert the judgment in other matters, prejudice it no less in this its more refined
and elegant province. These causes produce different opinions upon everything which is an
object of the understanding, without inducing us to suppose that there are no settled
principles of reason. And indeed, on the whole, one may observe that there is rather less
difference upon matters of taste among mankind, than upon most of those which depend upon
the naked reason; and that men are far better agreed on the excellency of a description in
Virgil, than on the truth or falsehood of a theory of Aristotle.

A rectitude of judgment in the arts, which may be called a good taste, does in a great
measure depend upon sensibility; because, if the mind has no bent to the pleasures of the
imagination, it will never apply itself sufficiently to works of that species to acquire a
competent knowledge in them. But, though a degree of sensibility is requisite to form a
good judgment, yet a good judgment does not necessarily arise from a quick sensibility of
pleasure; it frequently happens that a very poor judge, merely by force of a greater
complexional sensibility, is more affected by a very poor piece, than the best judge by
the most perfect; for as everything new, extraordinary, grand, or passionate, is well
calculated to affect such a person, and that the faults do not affect him, his pleasure is
more pure and unmixed; and as it is merely a pleasure of the imagination, it is much
higher than any which is derived from a rectitude of the judgment; the judgment is for the
greater part employed in throwing stumbling-blocks in the way of the imagination, in
dissipating the scenes of its enchantment, and in tying us down to the disagreeable yoke
of our reason: for almost the only pleasure that men have in judging better than others,
consists in a sort of conscious pride and superiority, which arises from thinking rightly;
but then, this is an indirect pleasure, a pleasure which does not immediately result from
the object which is under contemplation. In the morning of our days, when the senses are
unworn and tender, when the whole man is awake in every part, and the gloss of novelty
fresh upon all the objects that surround us, how lively at that time are our sensations,
but how false and inaccurate the judgments we form of things? I despair of ever receiving
the same degree of pleasure from the most excellent performances of genius, which I felt
at that age from pieces which my present judgment regards as trifling and contemptible.
Every trivial cause of pleasure is apt to affect the man of too sanguine a complexion: his
appetite is too keen to suffer his taste to be delicate; and he is in all respects what
Ovid says of himself in love,

One of this character can never be a refined judge; never what the comic poet calls
elegans formarum spectator. The excellence and force of a composition must always be
imperfectly estimated from its effect on the minds of any, except we know the temper and
character of those minds. The most powerful effects of poetry and music have been
displayed, and perhaps are still displayed, where these arts are but in a very low and
imperfect state. The rude hearer is affected by the principles which operate in these arts
even in their rudest condition; and he is not skillful enough to perceive the defects. But
as the arts advance towards their perfection, the science of criticism advances with equal
pace, and the pleasure of judges is frequently interrupted by the faults which are
discovered in the most finished compositions.

Before I leave this subject I cannot help taking notice of an opinion which many
persons entertain, as if the taste were a separate faculty of the mind, and distinct from
the judgment and imagination; a species of instinct, by which we are struck naturally, and
at the first glance, without any previous reasoning, with the excellencies, or the
defects, of a composition. So far as the imagination and the passions are concerned, I
believe it true, that the reason is little consulted; but where disposition, where
decorum, where congruity are concerned, in short, wherever the best taste differs from the
worst, I am convinced that the understanding operates, and nothing else; and its operation
is in reality far from being always sudden, or, when it is sudden, it is often far from
being right. Men of the best taste, by consideration, come frequently to change these
early and precipitate judgments, which the mind, from its aversion to neutrality and
doubt, loves to form on the spot. It is known that the taste (whatever it is) is improved
exactly as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to
our object, and by frequent exercise. They who have not taken these methods, if their
taste decides quickly, it is always uncertainly; and their quickness is owing to their
presumption and rashness, and not to any sudden irradiation, that in a moment dispels all
darkness from their minds. But they who have cultivated that species of knowledge which
makes the object of taste, by degrees, and habitually, attain not only a soundness, but a
readiness of judgment, as men do by the same methods on all other occasions. At first they
are obliged to spell, but at least they read with ease and with celerity; but this
celerity of its operation is no proof that the taste is a distinct faculty. Nobody, I
believe, has attended the course of a discussion, which turned upon matters within the
sphere of mere naked reason, but must have observed the extreme readiness with which the
whole process of the argument is carried on, the grounds discovered, the objections raised
and answered, and the conclusions drawn from premises, with a quickness altogether as
great as the taste can be supposed to work with; and yet where nothing but plain reason
either is or can be suspected to operate. To multiply principles for every different
appearance, is useless, and unphilosophical too in a high degree.

This matter might be pursued much further; but it is not the extent of the subject
which must prescribe our bounds, for what subject does not branch out to infinity? It is
the nature of our particular scheme, and the single point of view in which we consider it,
which ought to put a stop to our researches.

Source:

Burke, Edmund, 1729?-1797.: On taste. On the sublime and beautiful. Reflections on
the French Revolution. A letter to a noble lord. With introd. and notes. New York,
Collier [c1909], Harvard Classics v. 24

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